A pathbreaking study of Dalit women’s writings and lives, Writing Caste/Writing Gender offers a powerful counternarrative to the mainstream assumptions about the development of feminism in India in the twentieth century. Featuring extensive extracts from eight Dalit women’s life-narratives—or testimonios—on issues such as food, hunger, community, caste, labor, education, violence, resistance, and collective struggle, the book brings to vivid life voices that unequivocally show that Dalit feminism, far from being silent as so often presumed, is rich, powerful, and layered—as well as highly articulate. Writing Caste/Writing Gender contributes significantly to the field of biography and will be welcomed in this paperback format by scholars of caste, gender, and politics in India.
